Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical comedy Company is back on Broadway with a groundbreaking new production. A celebration of being single, being married and being alive in 21st-century New York couldn’t be timelier.
Tony Award® and Grammy Award® winner Katrina Lenk (The Band’s Visit), two-time Tony Award and two-time Grammy Award winner Patti LuPone (Evita, Gypsy) and Tony Award and Olivier Award-winning producer Chris Harper (War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) will join us to discuss Company and why the play resonates so strongly at this moment.
About the speakers:
Katrina Lenk (Bobbie) is very grateful we’re all here together! Broadway: The Band’s Visit (Tony and Grammy awards), Indecent, Once, Spider-Man, The Miracle Worker. Off-Broadway: The Band’s Visit (Lucille Lortel Award) and Indecent (Clarence Derwent Award). TV: “Ozark” (final season), “Tommy,” “Little Voice,” “The Good Fight,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Get Down,” “Elementary,” The Blacklist.” Lenk is the ringleader of the band/performance art piece moxy phinx. @TheKatrinaLenk
Patti LuPone (Joanne) won the Olivier and WhatsOnStage Awards for her performance as Joanne in the West End production of Company. A two-time Tony Award winner for her performances in Evita and the most recent Broadway production of Gypsy, her New York stage credits include War Paint (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award nominations); Shows for Days; The Seven Deadly Sins (New York City Ballet); Company (New York Philharmonic); Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Tony, Drama Desk, OCC Award nominations); Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk, OCC nominations); Noises Off; The Old Neighborhood; Master Class; Anything Goes (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award); Oliver!; Accidental Death of An Anarchist; The Water Engine; and The Robber Bridegroom (Tony and Drama Desk nominations). In addition to Company, her London stage credits include Master Class; Sunset Boulevard (Olivier Award nomination); The Cradle Will Rock, and Les Miserables, for which she won the Olivier Award, the first American artist to do so, for her performances in both musicals. Opera: The Ghosts of Versailles (Los Angeles Opera), To Hell and Back (San Francisco Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra), The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Los Angeles Opera debut), Regina (Kennedy Center). Film credits include: The Comedian, Parker, Union Square, Summer of Sam, Driving Miss Daisy, and Witness. LuPone’s television credits include “Pose,” “Mom,” “The Simpsons,” “Vampirina,” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” “Penny Dreadful” (Critics Choice Award nomination), “Girls,” “American Horror Story: Coven,” “30 Rock,” “Glee,” “Frasier” (Emmy Award nomination), and three years as Libby Thatcher on the ABC series “Life Goes On.” She is a founding member of both the Drama Division of The Juilliard School and John Houseman’s The Acting Company and the author of the New York Times best-seller Patti LuPone: A Memoir.
Chris Harper (Producer) is a Tony and Olivier Award-winning producer. Following their previous collaborations, Chris and Director Marianne Elliott established their company, Elliott & Harper Productions, alongside Producer Nick Sidi in 2016. Their production of Sondheim and George Furth’s Company, directed by Marianne opened in the West End at the Gielgud Theatre in 2018, before transferring to the Bernard Jacobs Theatre on Broadway where it is currently playing, starring Katrina Lenk and Patti LuPone. Chris’ other productions for Elliott & Harper Productions include Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman directed by Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell (Young Vic and West End), a new production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe directed by Sally Cookson (Leeds Playhouse and Bridge Theatre, London) and which is currently on a tour of the UK and Northern Ireland (directed by Michael Fentiman). The next productions for Elliott & Harper will be the West End premier of Cock by Mike Bartlett, starring Jonathan Bailey and Taron Egerton.
Prior to forming Elliott & Harper, Chris was the founding Managing Director and Producer for National Theatre Productions, where he produced Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris’s ground-breaking production of War Horse for eight years in the West End as well as producing the New York transfer, where it ran for two years, winning five Tony Awards including Best Play. Chris also produced the subsequent productions in Toronto, Berlin, Holland and Australia, and the North American and UK tour. Chris Harper also produced the West End transfer of Marianne Elliott’s visionary production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, where it ran for five years and won seven Olivier Awards, including Best Play. It ran on Broadway for two years, winning five Tony Awards including Best Play.
In addition, Chris Harper produced a TV documentary called My Curious Documentary for the BBC, about children learning to live with autism. His other work for National Theatre Productions includes One Man, Two Guvnors, directed by Nicholas Hytner, in the West End for over three years, a subsequent tour of the UK and Ireland, and Broadway. In 2016 he produced Jeremy Herrin’s production of People, Places and Things in the West End. He was also the Executive Producer on the West End transfer of the Broadway production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
Over the last 30 years, Chris Harper has worked for Birmingham Rep, Birmingham Hippodrome, Stage Entertainment, Disney Theatrical, Cameron Mackintosh and André Ptaszynski. He has also been a board member of the Battersea Arts Centre, Punchdrunk, the Young Vic and the Bush Theatre. https://elliottandharper.com